St. Simon Stylites, the early Christian ascetic who spent much of his life installed atop a tall column in the middle of the desert, was a subject of no little speculation and joking among the young Surrealists. Buñuel eventually devoted one of his most purely surrealist films to the subject. Simon of the Desert is serious slapstick in support of the observation, "Man is your most ludicrous creation, Lord." Simon suffers the taunts of Satan in many guises (a little Lolita, Jesus with lamb, an exhibitionist, an old hag, all played by Silvia Pinal), as well as more subtle temptations, not to mention his mother camped at his feet. But it is not Simon-who blesses flies and does, after all, effect miracles-which Buñuel himself taunts. The object of his diabolical and blasphemous wit is modern society, which all the Simons in the desert could not save from itself.